[p1necone]

Your analogy doesn't map to this situation. Google and Apple would be the people you're driving around, not Uber. The company that employs you as a plumber maps to Uber, which of course would just be you if you were self employed.

[aspenmayer]

Many service companies are passed down in the family, or bought out for plum rates by star employees. Others are sole proprietorships. The service worker analogy is problematic because of the storied history of regulatory capture in the taxi industry, and the century of bad legal rulings that allowed it to continue. I guess licensed professions and gatekeeping like the AMA does to limit residency spots are the closest analogues I can think of off the cuff, but I also think those things are wrong for similar reasons, so moving on.

Now that the app driving companies turned over the apple cart by essentially cyber-squatting on the legal system while backed by high power lawyers paid by VC cash, the driving companies themselves want to cry foul when they don’t get the way they bought and paid for. I guess what they didn’t foresee is the long view of judgeship, and their concomitant dim view of cheaters, no matter the problem domain.

It’s too ironic to be believed. The judges apparently agree with me.

[lackbeard]

Seems like it maps to me. Google and Apple are hiring me to do work, then they are selling the output of that work to someone else (indirectly, in this case, but I don't see how that matters.)